Retailers have greeted 2024 with some degree of apprehension as they face rising upfront costs and uncertainty about the future.

One long-term retailer has predicted that slow first-quarter sales might continue with companies forced into closure.

Paulette Wedderburn, the proprietor of the ladies fashion store, Revelation Clothing Boutique & Bridal Wear, downstairs in the Washington Mall, has seen 27 years of the ups and downs of retail. She is now bracing for further industry contraction.

She said: “Not every company in Bermuda will make it. Some will have to close. I am hoping things pick up.

“We’ve had a good experience in the mall since we moved in less than two years ago. They manage the place really well. They're consistent. Whatever breaks, they're here to fix it.”

But tax and other levies that were paused since the Covid years appear set to return and merchandise costs have soared as sales have slowed.

Ms Wedderburn said: “The cost of goods has risen some 30 per cent at the vendor markets. That makes it difficult.“

US economists had long feared a 2024 recession but the American economy continues to outperform estimates. The nation’s gross domestic product was already on a roll in the last quarter of calendar year 2023, growing annually 3.3 per cent in each of the last three months.

In Bermuda, such recent data is not yet available but the government website reports that, including inflation, GDP at current purchasers’ prices rose 7.4 per cent in 2022 compared with 2021.

Jason Hayward, the Economy and Labour Minister, told the House of Assembly only weeks ago, that Bermuda’s economy was estimated to grow 4 per cent in 2024 and the island’s economy was at its best since 2011.

Still, UBS banking analysts estimated as many as 50,000 retail store closures in the United States in the five years to 2027. Last month, Macy’s said it would close 150 department stores – a third of its total. The pressures on retail are real and ubiquitous.

The BBC reported that in 2021, more than 8,700 chain stores closed in British High Streets, shopping centres and retail parks in the first six months of the year – nearly 50 a day – as a result of the pandemic, crime, online shopping and other changes in shopping habits.

Bermuda’s high-cost economy is only one problem for the retail sector. After a slower than normal year in 2023 for her business, including Christmas shopping, Ms Wedderburn surmised the softness may have been a product of her environment.

For a long time, foot traffic has been falling in the corridors of the island’s leading shopping concourse, the Washington Mall.

Paul Slaughter, the director and general manager, Washington Properties (Bermuda) Limited, was optimistic of improvements when we spoke to him in January. Occupancy had fallen to under 80 per cent, but has improved.

He said: “Our occupancy is higher now than before Covid.”

Asked about traffic, Ms Wedderburn responded: “The mall was quiet for some time, because it had fewer stores and that may have contributed to the slowdown in traffic. Maybe people were less used to coming here because there were fewer places to shop.”

Ms Wedderburn also noticed the slowdown in the wholesale vendor markets in Los Angeles and New York.

She has been operating her business since 1996, specialising in bridal wear, aiming to provide stylish, high-fashion, quality clothing at an affordable price.

She said her shop fitted people for all occasions: “From bridal and prom gowns, evening wear and cocktail dresses to casual and sports wear in sizes from two to 22.”

But she added: “As far back as September last year, I noticed during my buying trips that there was a decline in people shopping. A lot of the wholesalers told me they just don’t see the number of buyers. Even in November and February, it was the same thing.

“I am in places normally packed with buyers like me, but it was just a smattering of people. The garment district vendors, themselves, say it is very slow.

“Usually at that time of year, the place is swamped with people from all over the world. I am normally bumping into people from Jamaica, Africa, people of all different nationalities. Normally for the vendors, they don’t even have enough people to serve you. But lately, you have sales people outside the doors, trying to get you to come in.”